Definitions for Wadjet

Here are all the possible meanings and translations of the word Wadjet.

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Wadjet(ProperNoun)

the patron goddess and namesake of the Ancient Egyptian city of Per-Wadjit, known as Buto to the Greeks. Wadjet takes the form of a cobra and is associated with the Eye of Horus.

Origin: From Ancient Egyptian for "papyrus colored", an allusion to the skin of the cobra.

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Wadjet

Wadjet, known to the Greek world as Uto or Buto among other names, was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep, which became part of the city that the Egyptians named Per-Wadjet, House of Wadjet, and the Greeks called Buto, a city that was an important site in the Predynastic era of Ancient Egypt and the cultural developments of the Paleolithic. She was said to be the patron and protector of Lower Egypt and upon unification with Upper Egypt, the joint protector and patron of all of Egypt with the "goddess" of Upper Egypt. The image of Wadjet with the sun disk is called the uraeus, and it was the emblem on the crown of the rulers of Lower Egypt. She was also the protector of kings and of women in childbirth.
As the patron goddess, she was associated with the land and depicted as a snake-headed woman or a snake—usually an Egyptian cobra, a venomous snake common to the region; sometimes she was depicted as a woman with two snake heads and, at other times, a snake with a woman's head. Her oracle was in the renowned temple in Per-Wadjet that was dedicated to her worship and gave the city its name. This oracle may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Greece from Egypt.